“Grace burst through my bedroom door with such force that she nearly fell over. ‘Freddie isn’t in France!’ She announced triumphantly as Tilly came crashing in breathlessly behind her. I sat up in bed, where I have been watching videos of baby sloths and tutorials on how to do eyeliner slicks all morning. ‘Are you sure?’ I asked. ‘Yes!’ Tilly yelled, and started doing a little victory dance on the spot. ‘But I stalked him this morning.’ I said, ‘and there’s a picture of him actually standing in front of the Eiffel Tower, holding up a baguette and pretending it’s a moustache. He literally couldn’t be more in France if…

“Here they come. ‘-or I promise you, we’ll turn tight around and go back to Paterson!’ the woman behind the wheel of the burgundy minivan was shouting as it pulled up beside me. She had her head turned towards the backseat, where I could see three kids, two boys and a girl, staring back at her. A vein in her neck was bulging, looking not unlike the interstate, thick and unmissable, on the map held by the man in the passenger seat beside her. ‘I am serious. I have had it.’” Emmaline is the first port of call for the renters of Colby Realty houses in Colby, the seaside town…

“I’m thinking about this photograph Sam showed me. We were round at his Nan’s after school. I’d been worrying about stuff – my parents, as usual. All their arguing, and the silences, which were worse. Sam used to listen, kind of, while I went on about it.” Kate’s parents are arguing, a lot. Though there’s also ridiculously long silent moments too. They used to be so happy but she has no idea what went wrong. As a one last attempt to rekindle their relationship they are spending four weeks on a Hebridean Island, with Kate. Kate doesn’t want to go but after her relationship with her ex-boyfriend ended so badly…

“THE SUMMER OF THE WISH HOUSE Richard still thought about it like that, in standout large letters, capitalized in his mind. Title to a very special time. The End of his childhood. Richard had been fifteen that year, a good enough age to begin being an adult, but maybe the transition from one stage of life to another wasn’t marked by passing years, but by some event.” During the scorching summer of ’76 Richard comes across the Dalton family. Unlike any family he’s ever come across, they are glamorous, beautiful artists with their free love and a chilled out view of life. Richard is seduced by Clio, the 16 year…